CELLO THERE!

Recently departed BELLE AND SEBASTIAN vocalist and cellist ISOBEL CAMPBELL has returned to the stage just a few days after going home to Scotland in the middle of the band’s tour of the US.

Campbell appeared at Glasgow’s King Tuts Wah Wah Hut as third on an eclectic bill assembled by Creeping Bent Records, which also featured hotly-tipped prog-punk act Transelement, and Monica Queen, herself vocalist on Belle And Sebastian‘s 1997 single ‘Lazy Line Painter Jane’.

Campbell opened the evening along with Scottish jazz maverick Bill Wells, her collaborator on a forthcoming album of Billie Holiday cover versions. However, an already surprised audience was stunned at the 15-minute piece performed by the duo.

Campbell played a series of largely improvised cello pieces and scales, sometimes plucking the strings and occasionally beating the body of the instrument with the bow. Wells, hunched over a sampler, took the cello’s sounds and reworked them live to produce a seemingly random and at times ear-splitting noise.

Isobel Campbell and Bill Wells release their jazz covers album ‘Ghost of Yesterday’ on June 17 and perform excerpts from it at Glasgow’s CCA on June 21.